Open-Air Classroom: For the McEwens of Shelby County, home schooling was the answer for their boys.

Frank Jr., 17, is a junior in high school, hoping for an academic scholarship to a top school; Luke is younger, 15, but he’s also hoping for a scholarship. They’ve both attended school dances and football games, play church basketball, taken field trips with their friends and play pick-up sports nearly every Sunday afternoon.

They’ve also had easy access to the family farm, attending to horses and chickens and cows between classes. They’re taught about a mile away, at home, by their mother, Helen.

“There are some stereotypes about homeschool children, and honestly, I haven’t met any of them,” Helen says. “There are some great kids out here being home-schooled, and I wouldn’t do it any other way.”

That wasn’t always the case.

Helen graduated from Vestavia Hills High School and attended UAB and Auburn before earning a paralegal degree at Samford University. Frank graduated from Shelby County High School and received an animal and dairy sciences degree from Auburn. Neither knew where it would lead when Frank brought up homeschooling about 15 years ago.

“My oldest was 2, and we had begun looking for preschools,” Helen recalls. “He said, ‘Helen, you have a college education – don’t you think you can teach him his colors and his numbers?’ I had seen kids who have been home-schooled, and I was so impressed with them.”

So Helen began talking to her friends — “exhausting them with questions,” she says with a laugh — and ended up enrolling Frank and Luke in Evangel Christian School, an umbrella organization for home-schoolers. More than 100 church schools, including Evangel, are listed by Christian Home Fellowship of Alabama, an information site for home schooling.

“They submit our kids’ grades to the state,” Helen says of Evangel. “They offer classes and labs and sports. It’s really not much different from a public school, other than your kids are home with you more.”

For the McEwens, that’s key. Frank, Frank Jr. and Luke are the names behind McEwen & Sons, a family run mill that produces stoneground organic grits, cornmeal and polenta. The boys raise free-range chickens on the family farm, providing eggs to restaurants and other customers in the Birmingham area.

“They pick up eggs several times a week and help their dad at the store,” Helen says. “It’s made for a really balanced life for them. We’ve had field trips, the same kind of stuff the public schools had, but we’ve just had more flexibility. We’d get all our work done during the day, so there wouldn't be a lot of homework at night,and then they’d have the freedom to do sports or just be together.”

Being home-schooled, though, means regular class times, testing, required reading and all the other things that come with a more traditional education. McEwen purchases a curriculum, and what she teaches at home is bolstered by both what Evangel offers and a co-op of homeschoolers that allows for special study — Bible school, music or history, for instance — outside of the home.

And that means other teachers, when it’s required.

“I’m still considered the primary teacher, but most home-schooled kids are in some sort of co-op because you get into those subjects like chemistry and Algebra II,” Helen says. “The first year Frank was in the co-op in the seventh grade, he had three teachers who had Ph.D.s in their field.

“Every year they read about 12 classic books and write papers on them,” Helen adds. “It’s much, much more challenging than I ever experienced growing up.”

Frank and Luke interact with kids in the coop, at Evangel and at their own church, Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral, where they’ve played basketball since first grade.

“We’ve tried to expose them to so many different things,” Helen says. “We don’t just stay in the house. The world, not your home, is your classroom. That’s the beauty of it.” The McEwens have nothing against traditional schooling.

“Home schooling is just for people who want an alternative lifestyle,” Helen says. “I have all praise for public school teachers and private school teachers. What they’re doing is a lot harder than what I do with just two boys.” Home schooling can be an inexpensive alternative to private school, but that’s not what drew the McEwens to it.

“We did it more just so they could enjoy this farm life,” she says. “We wouldn’t always be on the road. I didn’t want to spend my whole time getting my kids to and from school.” The whole experience, Helen say, has, in a way, been a calling.

“It’s not for everybody,” she says. “You just have to know in your heart that it’s right for your family. It really just suits our lifestyle, and I think my kids have really had a great childhood.”